Emptiness 空 & Shizen 自然

Because January is all about silence, peace, and emptiness, we work with the Zen Buddhist concept 空 'Kuu': emptiness. Emptiness is an important concept in all forms of Buddhism. Indian yogis, for example, know it as śūnyatā in Sanskrit; 'śūnya' means 'emptiness' and 'tā' means 'that which is'. If you have ever visited a Japanese temple, you may have heard the monks chanting the Heart Sutra. This text expresses the theoretical and philosophical core of Zen teachings. The core of the Heart Sutra can be expressed in one line:

色 即 是 空 – shiki soku ze kū
空 即 是 色 – kū soku ze shiki

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Philosophically, Zen Buddhist emptiness is the content of an unfilled form, like the emptiness in a teacup. Practically speaking, during our meditation and yoga practice we create emptiness and silence in both body and mind, thereby achieving a physical and mental state in which we see and feel everything around us as it is in the moment, without coloring by past experiences or expectations about the future. Next month we will talk about 'form' 色 'shiki'.

Shizen 自然

自 'Shi' means 'of itself / by itself'
然 'Zen' means 'like' In English, we could translate the original meaning of Shizen as 'naturally'.
Today, Shizen is often translated by Westerners as "nature", probably because plants and trees are considered to exist "naturally". Mami Kataoka - Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo - explains: “In Japan, there was a concept called 'jinen' 自然 - which means 'to be natural' or 'to be as one is'. This came from the Zen Buddhist philosophy of famous monks like Shinran and Dogen, which evolved from 'Mui Shizen' 無為自然. The term 'Shizen' does not refer to nature, in the concept of wild or primeval forests competing with humans, but to a broader concept encompassing all things in the universe, of which humans are a part.”